


like the cat i have nine times to die

by faevalentine



Series: final girl [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Death, Demogorgon - Freeform, F/M, Kind of abusive relationship, Mentions of Blood, almost a cult, almost being sacrificed, descriptions of violence, it's like a prequel for my steve/oc series tho, steves in this like once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28666791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faevalentine/pseuds/faevalentine
Summary: The end of Rosemary Starling's life starts like this.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: final girl [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100873
Kudos: 2





	like the cat i have nine times to die

**Author's Note:**

> this is part of a series of random scenes about my oc rosemary and her relationship w steve. i've been meaning to write a cohesive and chronological fic about them but UGH you know. pls check the tags for any pertinent warnings.

The end of Rosemary Starling’s life starts like this.

She’s leant up against her beat-up Ford Escort, two days before summer break, struggling for her keys at the bottom of her bag. Her History and Math textbooks are balanced in her other arm and her green, yellow, and white cheerleading skirt is inching its way up her thigh. In an effort to tug the skirt down, her textbooks tumble from her arms onto the asphalt beneath her.

“Shit”, she mutters with a wayward glance toward them, still too involved in digging through her bag for her keys to retrieve them.

She finally finds the keys somewhere at the very bottom of her bag, buried in between papers and pens and used-up tubes of lip balm. She hooks a finger onto them and drags them up through the mess, closing her fist around them once they don’t snag on everything else in the bag. _Finally_.

She lets her bag drop back onto her arm and moves to pick up her textbooks.

“Oh- -”, she startles, stopping short as she spots a boy with a mop of black hair bending down to grab them off the ground for her, “Hi”, she manages.

He straightens and her heart skips a beat - - she’d _thought_ it was him. Charlie Torrance with his big watery eyes, aquiline nose, and olive skin. She swallows hard. He sits two seats in front of her in Science and even though Andrea from Cheer thinks she’s insane for it, she’s got a _massive_ crush on him. She’s not sure what it is really; if not for the fact that he’s just plain cute and she’s a sixteen-year-old girl. The way he speaks maybe; slow and measured like he actually thinks about what he’s saying unlike every other boy ever. He’s not obnoxious about his obvious intelligence either, she likes that, how having a conversation with him doesn’t make her feel like pulling teeth.

She’s far beyond trying to figure it out. She just _likes_ him.

“Hey”, he shifts back on his feet as he hands the textbooks over, “You dropped these.”

She blushes as she takes them and shoves them into her bag, “Yeah”, she laughs awkwardly, holding up her keys, finger slipped through one of the rings, “I can’t really manage two things at once”. She wants to hit herself in the head the moment the words come out of her mouth.

He smiles like what she said was genuinely funny and not just weirdly self-deprecating. A warm fuzzy feeling floods her chest at that, and she decides against unlocking her car and driving away as fast as she possibly can.

“Nice car”, he nods toward it.

Rosemary uses a finger to brush her left plait off her shoulder and shrugs, “ _Huh_ \- oh, I suppose. It was my Mom’s, it’s kind of old. Thank you though.”

“I like it”, he says with a smile that leaves her a little breathless.

She can’t help but smile back, a blush gathering on her cheeks despite her willing it away as hard as humanly possible, “Uh- -”, she says, about to make an awkward exit.

Charlie starts to say something at the same time and Rosemary shakes her head to let him continue, “Oh, sorry”, he says, “Did you want to say something?”

“No, no. Go ahead”, she shifts her bag from one arm to the other, feeling awkward.

Not even the unflappable Charlie Torrance is immune to her complete and unfailing ability to ruin all interactions she has with any boy that she finds cute.

“ _Uh_ ”, he says, and then Rosemary thinks he laughs nervously but she can’t be sure, he reaches up to scratch the back of his neck, “Would you want to, like, see a movie or something when summer break starts? Or we could get dinner. Or nothing. Whatever you want.”

He tapers off and does what Rosemary can now say with ninety percent certainty _is_ a nervous laugh. At the same time, Rosemary thinks her heart might just beat out of her chest. She blinks, once, twice - - surely Charlie will think she’s _like_ , broken. She may as well be, because since when on Earth did Charlie want to go on a date with her? And then _wait, is it a date?_

“Like”, she bites her lip, “as a _date_?”

“ _Um_ ”, she doesn’t think she’s seen him this nervous before _ever_ , her eyes drop to where his fingers toy with the zipper on his jacket and then back up his face where his cheeks grow a pleasant red, “If you’d like it to be, yeah.”

Rosemary smiles, real and genuine and not forced at all if it weren’t weird she would probably lean forward and kiss him right there, “I’d really like that”, she fishes a piece of paper from her bag, it’s got math equations and doodles on it and she really _really_ hopes it’s not the page she sketched his profile onto (sue her! Math is boring), “I’ll give you my number.”

She presses the page against the top of the car and scribbles the number for the house in a blank spot and writes her name underneath it; briefly upset there is no letter ‘i’ in Rosemary so she can dot it with a heart. She scans the page quickly and is happy to find the only doodles are little Mickey and Minnie Mouses.

He takes it as she offers it to him and their fingers brush ever so slightly.

“I’ll call you”, he says, and Rosemary is nodding, moving to unlock her car door as he turns around and she watches him grin down at the page.

Her heart thumps wildly in her chest as she slips into the seat behind the wheel. She throws her bag into the passenger seat with little care and watches Charlie get into his pick-up truck and drive away. She looks around to make sure no one is watching and then, because she can’t contain it, squeals in excitement. She needs to tell Chloe, like, yesterday.

She jams her keys into the ignition, starts the car on her second try, then steers her way out of the Hawkins High carpark and all the way home, hardly able to contain her smile.

It’s three days later when Charlie Torrance finally calls.

It’s just past midday on a Saturday - - first day of summer break - - and Rosemary has only _just_ dragged herself out of bed much to her parents’ distress. Her Dad, Jack, is stretched out on the couch watching baseball and pretending to go over various bits of paperwork from his job at the Indiana branch of the FBI. She gets her hair and sometimes too long limbs from him, her resistance to authority as well but they don’t discuss that often. Her Mom, Suzy is in an armchair reading a medical textbook because she’s a Doctor and she’s smart and pretty and perfect. People (- -mainly her own father- -) tell Rosemary that she has her mother’s face and Rosemary never believes them because no matter how much she wants to believe it she just _can’t_. She mostly just gets her mother’s stubbornness - - Rosemary has always been more like her Dad.

Whatever, back to the matter at hand.

Rosemary is sitting on the kitchen stool by the phone, ready to pounce the moment it rings. Her Mom keeps peering at her over her glasses, suspicious as always. She tries to look calm about it all, but she can feel her leg bouncing like crazy and her Dad is a behavioural analyst so she’s sure her eagerness can be read all over her.

Her Dad is about to open his mouth and say something, Rosemary gives him this teeth-clenched smile that they all know is just a way to deflect when the phone starts to ring.

Rosemary jolts, immediately sliding off the stool and tripping toward the phone.

She hovers her hand over it, waiting a few rings to pick up.

“ _Jesus_ ”, her mother says, “Aren’t you going to answer?”

Rosemary swivels her head, “I can’t be too eager!”, she asserts and then she unceremoniously swipes the phone from the wall mount and ducks through the doorway into the kitchen. Her father gives her mother a knowing look like he could have told her that. Suzy just rolls her eyes and goes back to her book.

“This is the Starling residence”, Rosemary chirps into the receiver, crossing her fingers.

“ _Uh_ ”, the voice comes through crackly and a little quiet, there’s a noise like shuffling and the voice gets louder, “This is Charlie Torrance, can I speak to Rosemary please.”

Rosemary breaks out into a grin, over the serving hatch she can see her Dad lift off the couch to watch her, she waves him off and ducks down to sit on the floor away from prying eyes, they can hear half the conversation anyway, “Hi, yes, it's me.”

“Oh”, Charlie laughs, “Sorry. Hi. How are you?”

She twirls the cord around her finger, “Oh y’know. I like, only _just_ woke up. How about you?”

“Mmm”, he hums, “Yeah I’m good. My parents are acting kind of funny, so I wanted to get out of the house… How’s tonight for that date? I know it’s a bit early.”

“Tonight?”, Rosemary pops her head around the doorway, her Mom is giving her a pointed stare, she mouths the word ‘ _tonight’_ again and her Mom just looks back at her textbook, “Tonight is great! What did you have in mind?”

“A movie? At the drive-in? We can see whatever.”

Rosemary ducks back into the kitchen, “Oh yeah, absolutely. I’ve been meaning to see that new Poltergeist movie.”

He chuckles, “Poltergeist?”

She furrows an eyebrow, “Yeah, what about it?”

She imagines that he shrugs nonchalantly, “Nothing. I just didn’t quite expect that from a cheerleader. Not a problem though.”

“Yeah”, she says, “I just like scary movies, I guess. Anyway, what time?”

“Six?”, he asks.

“Perfect”, she says, and then she rattles off her address for him.

“I’ll see you then”, he tells her.

“Can’t wait.”

The line goes out with a click and she gives herself a brief moment tucked against the cupboards to freak out before coming back out into the living room to face the barrage of questions from her parents. She pops the phone back on the wall and her Dad is already halfway through a question, paperwork discarded on the floor.

“Who was _that_?”

Rosemary spins around on her heel, “ _Uh_. No one?”, she tries.

Her Dad rolls his eyes, “No, really. Or I’m putting locks on your door.”

Rosemary groans, “Dad.”

“Jack”, her Mom says, tucking her thumb between the pages of her book, “She’ll just climb out the windows.”

Rosemary nods enthusiastically, “ _Exactly!_ Listen to Mom.”

“I’ll get bars for your windows then”, he says, “And I’ll sit on the porch with my gun.”

“Dad!”

“Who is he?”, her Mom presses, stopping her Dad’s stupid joke, “Where are you going?”

Rosemary frowns. It’s not as if they’re going to bust her or follow her or tell her she can't go (though her Dad is no doubt at least interested in checking Charlie’s criminal record), but it’s still such a drag to have to tell them.

“You’re sixteen, Rose”, her Mom says in a way that doesn’t feel like she’s being scolded, “We just want to know.”

Rosemary nods reluctantly and gives it up, “His name is Charlie, he invited me to see a movie tonight.”

Her Dad gives her this look like ‘go on’.

“We have Science and Math together. We’re seeing Poltergeist at the drive-in.”

“What’s his last name”, her Dad asks.

“Torrance”, Rosemary raises an eyebrow, “Do you need his social security number as well?”

Her Mom laughs.

“Is that all?”, Rosemary asks, “Because I need to start getting ready.”

“No”, her Dad says at the same time her Mom says, “Yes”.

Rosemary grins and darts upstairs before they can pry anything else out of her.

The date goes well.

The movie is good, Rosemary likes it at least, but she and Charlie end up making out in his back seat about halfway through. She figures that she can see it again with Chloe or something. The way Charlie kisses her, slow and soft and gentle, like she is going to dissolve underneath his hands at any time, takes precedence over how the movie ends.

It had started with him just asking her if she wanted popcorn. He’d turned in his seat to look at her and she hadn’t been able to stop herself really. He’d asked and she just leaned over the centre console and planted one straight on his mouth. Then he laughed and it took all of five minutes for them to agree to climb into the back seat.

She lets him touch her bare waist under her t-shirt and stops to wonder if this is all going too fast. But at the end of the day, she is sixteen and lovesick, so the thought is only fleeting before she’s back to letting his hand creep higher up her shirt.

They don’t do anything else. Rosemary knows she isn’t ready for that and no matter how much she likes Charlie Torrance she isn’t going to make herself uncomfortable for him. She has enough sense for that at least.

The movie ends, so they climb out of the backseat before anyone notices them and Charlie drives her home and kisses her on the porch for five long minutes. He grins when he finally pulls away and tells her that he had a great night. Rosemary is left breathless and smiling even when his car has pulled off down the road, she buries her face in her hands and squeals despite the fact that her parents are on the other side of the door and Steve Harrington who lives across the road and three doors down is leaned up against someone else’s car, smoking a cigarette.

Steve raises a hand in her direction when he sees her looking. She raises one back, but she can’t bring herself to feel awkward about it when she’s practically on cloud nine. Rosemary unlocks the front door instead of knocking, even though she knows her parents are still in the living room. It’s more of a formality than anything, so they can all pretend that Rosemary is actually shocked to see them there.

They’re huddled together on the couch and Rosemary can tell they’re trying to act like they’ve not been listening in. Not that she and Charlie had done much talking.

“Hi”, Rosemary says sheepishly, they both turn their heads to look at her too quickly, she tries to make a break for her room, “Goodnight”, she calls, halfway up the stairs before they can say anything.

“Rosie”, her Dad shouts, and she can hear him trying to climb over the back of the couch.

“ _Jesus_ , Jack”, her Mom says with a long-suffering sigh, and Rosemary knows she’s made it, “You’ve got all summer to interrogate her. Sit down.”

Rosemary resists the urge to give her Dad a smug look and bounds the rest of the way up the flight of stairs. She swings the door shut behind her and collapses on her pink duvet. As is becoming a theme recently, she buries her face in her pillow and squeals as quietly as she can as to not let her parents hear. It’s not like she can help it, she’s completely overwhelmed with joy and it feels like she might explode if she doesn’t do _something_ to let it out.

The next few weeks continue much the same.

Charlie calls her again, they go on dates, he kisses her like she’s the only person in the world he cares about and Rosemary ends up spending hours on the phone with Chloe telling her absolutely everything. By the month mark Rosemary is convinced he’s the love of her life - - not _literally_ , she’s not a _total_ airhead, but she thinks she is probably heading somewhere in that direction. Not that she has any clue really, the only other guys that she’s dated generally haven’t lasted more than one or two weeks.

But Charlie is _different_. That much she knows.

Though she doesn’t realise just _how_ different until two and a half weeks before summer break is supposed to end.

Her parents are out of town - - that’s the first thing that goes wrong.

Her Dad has been called on some case that he won't tell her or her Mom about which means it is very serious and he has to go right away, and her Mom is speaking at a conference tomorrow morning in Illinois and, even though she doesn’t want to leave Rosemary alone, Rosemary insists. So, her Mom goes, and Rosemary just orders a pizza and sits on the couch to watch _Tucker’s Witch_ until she decides to go to bed.

The phone rings.

This isn’t a problem in itself, it’s only a problem once Rosemary answers it.

Which like, she _has_ to. It could be her Mom or Dad checking to see if she’s having a rager or something. Or it could be Chloe with pertinent news.

It’s not.

It’s Charlie - - which is the second thing that goes wrong that night.

Rosemary doesn’t say anything upon answering, just tucks the phone against her ear in case it’s someone calling to sell her something. There’s a scuffle and she can hear a dog barking, angry and loud somewhere in the background. It doesn’t register as anything to worry about, not yet, especially when there’s no context to the noise.

“- -Rosemary”, the voice says, unmistakably Charlie, he sounds surprisingly panicked, out of breath, “Is that you?”

Rosemary’s heartbeat picks up, thudding rapidly in her chest, she puts her pizza down like it will help her concentrate, “Charlie? It’s me. Are you okay?”

“ _Jesus_ ”, he says shakily, “My parents are going fucking psycho. I- I have no idea what’s happening, th- they popped all the fucking car tires- -”

“ _What_ ”, Rosemary feels her blood run cold, sure that he’s messing with her, sure that it’s all coming crashing down around her and he’s just playing some ridiculous prank on her, “Are you fucking with me? Are you serious right now Charlie?”

“Fuck. I- I’m not fucking joking. Please, _god_ , Rose, can you come get me? I swear- I don’t even have to stay with you tonight, just- _please_ ”, it dawns on her that he’s _begging_ her, he’s really actually serious, “They’re- I- I don’t know what’s happening. I- I’ll be out the front. _Please,_ Rose.”

Rosemary’s sigh comes out with a shudder, anxiety by osmosis, “O- okay. I’m coming. We’ll figure it out once you’re safe. I’ll be there soon.”

“God, _thank you_ ”, he lets out what is almost a sigh of relief.

She can tell he doesn’t want to get off the line, but that dog is still barking over and over and over, more aggressive by the minute and there are sounds in the background that Rosemary still can't place and it’s all giving her the chills. So, she says something halfway reassuring and slams the phone on the receiver. She snatches her keys off the counter and shoves the nearest pair of shoes on, not bothering to change out of her four sizes too large t-shirt and shorts with holes in them. Her hands are shaking when she locks the door to the house and when she jams her keys into the ignition in her car.

That is the third mistake made that night.

If her parents were there, if Rosemary had half a brain, she might’ve at least called the cops first. But she didn’t, she gets in her car and she drives. She presses her foot on the pedal and goes as fast as she can without going out of control, she drives the whole fifteen minutes across town to Charlie’s house and doesn’t stop at a traffic light once. Her heart races the whole time, thinking of everything that could be happening. The less she knows about what’s going on, about what’s happening to Charlie, the more her mind runs wild with possibilities.

She expects to see Charlie at the end of his long driveway when she pulls onto the stretch of dirt road where his house is. He isn’t.

The fourth mistake she makes is that she turns down his driveway.

She’s not thinking.

The headlights of her car light up the path to his house, dissolving into darkness as they hit the thick forest around it. At the end of the driveway sit two cars, Charlie’s pick-up truck and another car she can’t quite see just behind it. The tires are bottomed out on both of the cars, glinting in the light there’s a steak knife that hangs out of Charlie’s front tire.

“ _Fuck_ ”, Rosemary says to herself.

Her shoulders feel tight and she doesn’t even want to turn her head to look around for where Charlie might be as her car creeps closer. She’s so fucking terrified, so afraid something will jump out at her in the dark. And god, the worst thing she thinks is that something _might_.

She’s inching closer to the front door, hands tight on the wheel and shoulders seized. So scared, so distracted that she doesn’t notice the spikes on the ground. She knows something’s wrong the moment she rolls over them. Her front tires go out immediately, the car sags and she’s jolted forward into her steering wheel. The horn blasts through the silence and has her heart racing as much as the tire spikes do.

How had she not noticed?

She scrambles off the wheel, breathing hard. The horn stops, but the silence is worse somehow.

Charlie is nowhere to be seen.

 _Fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck_ , she’s saying over and over in her head. What the actual _hell_ is going on? Charlie isn’t waiting for her, his parents – whatever they were doing – aren’t out here, Rosemary’s parents don’t know where she is, she’s just alerted whoever it is that popped Charlie’s tires to her presence with her horn, and to top it all off her tires are _fucked_ so she can’t even leave if she wants to.

So, Rosemary gathers every little scrap of courage she has, yanks the keys from her ignition, leaving her lights on, opens the door, and gets out of the car. The summer air is balmy against her bare legs, but the hair on her arm still raises with goosebumps. She takes a few shaky steps toward Charlie’s pick-up truck; her legs barely work from fear, but she crouches down and dislodges the surprisingly sharp steak knife from the front tire.

She feels marginally safer with it gripped in her fist.

But then there’s a scream.

It’s far off and high-pitched and Rosemary thinks it might even be followed by a shrill giggle. Every muscle in her body tenses. She can’t for the life of her figure out if the scream is nearby, or even what direction it’s coming from. The sound bounces off the trees around her.

And then it stops.

Every inch of Rosemary is screaming at her to turn around and run. Even without her car, she can make it up the driveway and to one of the houses down the road. She can bang on their door and call the cops and Sheriff Hopper can find Charlie for her.

But that scream. It worries her just as much as it scares her.

Who was it and where the _fuck_ is Charlie?

She holds the knife tighter in her hand and slowly stands from her crouch. She takes another look around the front of the house, there’s still the driveway to the right and dense forest everywhere else. Across the threshold of the house, the front door swings in the light breeze, squeaking on its hinges. It makes Rosemary’s heartbeat pick up, impossibly, beating faster than before.

There’s no other option if she wants a shot at finding Charlie, so she takes slow, careful steps onto the threshold. She’s not sure what she’s supposed to be scared of in the first place, but there are goosebumps on her neck, and she’s fighting the urge to run and never come back.

The door creaks louder as she puts her hand on it. The hallway is impossibly long in the darkness and leads to a staircase that goes up to a second floor. Rosemary tries not to think about how this is the first time she’s been in Charlie’s house, _and_ ostensibly – if things go well – the first time she’ll properly meet his parents.

She feels for the light switch to the left of the door, there are two. She presses both of them, hoping that the hallway or the room to the right will flood with light. Neither of them do - - the power must have been cut. She takes a few cautionary steps down the hallway, peering into rooms on both sides. As far as she can see they’re empty, she tries to not think about what, if anything, hides in the darkness.

There’s a noise like footsteps and something being dropped from a small height. Then the front door slams shut behind her. Rosemary has to clamp her free hand across her mouth to stop from screaming. She has the good sense to at least not yell out Charlie’s name like she’d intended to.

She can’t bring herself to move from her spot in the hallway in-between the two empty rooms. The house that stretches out in front of her is too daunting. She has no way of knowing what awaits her if she moves further in. It feels impossible to move.

But before she can even contemplate it, something comes barrelling down the stairs. She can’t tell what it is at first, but once they’re halfway down she can tell it a person. Rosemary is already backing down the hallway though, she spins around when her back hits the door. She tries to turn the handle but it’s stuck - _oh god it’s stuck why is it stuck_. She tries it again like it will magically open for her. And she’s obviously not thinking before whoever it is that was barrelling down the stairs has their hands on her shoulders and they’re prying her off the door.

Rosemary remembers the knife in her hands.

And then, “Rose- Rose, it’s me. It’s Charlie.”

“Oh, thank _god_ ”, Rosemary breathes, but she doesn’t drop the knife.

She lets Charlie spin her around. He’s sweaty and a little disheveled, but he looks like he’s in one piece. Which takes a massive weight off her shoulders, one she’d not even realised was there. She wraps her arms tight around his waist.

“Why weren’t you outside?”, she asks and then she lets go of him, remembering where they are, “The door’s jammed. We need to leave.”

Charlie nods emphatically and grabs her hand, the one with the knife still clenched in it. It doesn’t worry her at first, maybe he didn’t see the knife, maybe he just wants to hold her hand. But then he’s got a grip on her palm and he’s _squeezing_. His other hand comes up to hold her shoulder, she looks at her hand in his, then furrows her eyebrows.

“Charlie”, she says, looking up into his eyes, watery and sincere as ever, “What’s going on?”

There’s another crash somewhere in the house. Then the noise of something moving in the room to their right. Charlie pinches her hand so hard that she drops the knife, it clatters to the ground between their legs, hitting the hardwood floor.

She’s still not totally sure of what’s happening even when his eyes go vacant as he stares at her. Even when his hand goes to her wrist and the other to her form arm, his grip strong enough to bruise. Even when a figure emerges down the hallway, she can barely make them out, but they’re definitely there. They’re holding something that glints in the moonlight. Even when all of a sudden there’s a hand on the side of her head and she’s being thrown against a wall. It’s Charlie. He’s pushed her so hard into the wall next to them that she has to fight the urge to pass out. She’s immediately dazed, and her vision goes fuzzy.

Something trickles down the side of her face and she’s sure she’s bleeding.

She can’t check because she blinks, and her hands are tied with rope. She blinks again and she’s in a room lit entirely by candles. Her head is heavy and it’s difficult to move, but she manages to turn it enough to realise there are no windows and the only door is right behind her. The candlelight isn’t bright enough that she can make out what’s in the room. As far as she can tell, through the throbbing in her skull from getting her head smashed against a wall, she’s tied to a chair in a basement. There are masses of something she can’t make out to her left and the smell of rot pervades her nostrils. Then there’s something else - - thick and tangy, like the smell of pennies.

The door behind her squeaks on its hinges.

Footsteps.

“She’s _awake_ ”, a voice hisses.

“So what”, another, familiar voice replies.

 _Charlie_.

Jesus Christ.

Her heart sinks low into her stomach and bile rises in her throat as the two voices step around in front of her. They’re obscured in the candlelight, but it’s definitely Charlie. There’s another woman, she’s short with a round face and long hair, Rosemary only looks at her briefly but it’s long enough that she can tell there’s not something quite right about her. Rosemary’s gaze drifts to Charlie. Charlie with his aquiline nose, his huge expressive eyes, and his olive skin.

She wants to launch out of her chair and claw his eyes out.

“ _Mmm_ ”, he hums, tilting his head almost sympathetically, “How do you feel, Rose?”

Her name in his mouth makes her sick.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing to me?”, she demands.

Charlie glances at the woman next to him. And it’s all so painful because he looks just like _her_ Charlie, like the boy she was halfway in love with. Nothing is different in the way he carries himself, but it’s all completely _wrong_. He looks back at her.

He shrugs nonchalantly, “It’s not personal. Just a touch of ritual sacrifice.”

 _Ritual sacrifice_. Jesus, fuck.

“You sick _fuck_ ”, she spits at him, she lurches forward no matter how bad it makes her head hurt, “So you had to date me for two months for that?”

“A month and a half _technically_ ”, he corrects her, “And yeah. You needed to enter the house willingly.”

She scowls, “ _So_. You could’ve abducted a goddamn girl scout.”

He barks a laugh that would have filled her with butterflies just a few hours ago, “Thanks. I’ll try that next time.”

Rosemary manages to jut her chin out at the woman, “Who’s this _whore_ then?”

She thinks the name-calling is appropriate considering she’s helped tie her to a chair.

The girl clenches her fist and grits her teeth. Rosemary is glad to see she has that effect even tied to a chair about to be sacrificed. She also figures that she may as well collect enough information as possible before they do what they’re going to do. She wants to die at least understanding what it’s for.

“My sister”, he says.

“You look nothing alike”, Rosemary says despite herself.

Charlie shrugs like it shouldn’t matter.

The girl gives Rosemary a scowl and then she takes one of the unlit candles, snapping it off the table, and lights the wick over another candle's flame. She takes that candle - dripping with hot wax - across the room and lights several more. There’s a wet, splashing sound as she crosses to the other side of the room and lights the candles there.

What she thought was just the floor is actually a shallow pool of blood, with bits of viscera and dirt floating around in it. It makes her stomach turn. The masses on the wall are these awful muscular limbs that are definitely _not_ human, they’re covered in rotting blue and purple flesh, hung up on meat hooks. There’s something that looks like a head, but instead of a face, there’s a long snout that looks like it opens up five ways like a carnivorous flower. If she looks too long, she thinks she can see rows and rows of sharp teeth peeking from it.

Rosemary looks away and tries not to think of the smell, stronger now she knows what it is.

The girl comes back, her legs are covered in blood halfway up her shin.

“Ready?”, the girl asks Charlie.

He shakes his head, “Soon”, he says.

The girl frowns. Her footsteps squelch against the floor as she makes her way behind Rosemary and out the door. Charlie smiles something threatening at Rosemary.

“Don’t try anything”, he says, chuckling, “The sacrifice works even if we kill you in the hallway. You’ll be better off staying put; it’ll hurt less that way. See you soon.”

He leaves. The door slams shut behind him.

It takes everything in her to keep it together. To keep the betrayal, the terror, the fear all from spilling out. The words _ritual sacrifice_ tumble around her head as she wonders what they’ll do to her. Will she end up like those freakish things on the wall, dissected and hung up on a meat hook. Will her blood end up in the pool to her right, mixed in with the blood of who knows how many people (things?). Will they spread her out on a slab, plunge a knife into her breast, and burn her body on a fire? Every possible scenario runs through her head at once.

 _God_ , she feels like such an idiot. She knew all along Charlie was too good to be true. And why had she come here? Why didn’t she just call the cops like she’d told herself to. Why’d her parents have to go out of town? Would Charlie have known anyway, would he have waited another few weeks, another few months, until they were out of town again? Would this have happened anyway?

She lets her thoughts run wild until eventually, she sees no point in dwelling on it any further. All she can do now is try to get out, try to get her opportunity to claw Charlie’s eyes out. From what he’d said and the way the door behind her didn’t seem to lock it didn’t appear to be incredibly difficult to escape the room itself. Which is something at least.

So, despite the paralysing horror, Rosemary starts on the rope tied around her wrists. Rosemary isn’t sure how much Charlie knows about her that she hasn’t told him, but she’s at least never told him that her dad works for the FBI. This means he probably doesn’t anticipate that she knows how to untie knots with her eyes shut.

Chest heaving, she shifts her body so she can get at a better angle.

It doesn’t take long for the ropes to loosen; they start to fray after the first few times that Rosemary rubs her wrists against them. Once there’s enough give, Rosemary uses one of her hands to wiggle under the rope wrapped around her wrist. It’s tight but not tight enough that she can’t get a finger under it. The rope is brittle and easily broken, so she picks at it around her wrist until it falls free. She almost laughs as it falls straight off her hand with little effort.

She brings her arms around to her front and undoes the knot on her other hand. She unwinds the rope and drops it on the floor next to her. Her shoulders are sore when she bends down to untie the ropes on her feet, she wonders how long she was passed out for. It can’t have been more than a few hours, her limbs don’t feel stiff enough, but she has no way of knowing.

She keels forward off the chair, bending into a squat.

It takes a lot of effort not to cry or scream. She already knows none of that will help. She just needs to focus on getting out alive if that’s even possible at this point.

She swallows hard and stands up to look around.

The back of the room is closer to her chair than she had thought, and a cursory look confirms that there’s no lock on the door. The room is empty save for the candles, the pool of blood, and the meat hooks.

She needs a weapon.

The chair she’d been tied to is plastic and metal and she’s not sure it would be practical to lug it around, though she files it away as a last resort. The candles are useless. She would use the rope if it weren’t already fraying, besides, she can’t imagine she’ll get close enough to anyone to tie them up with it. That leaves her will little option but the meat hooks.

And like, _oh my god_ , she doesn’t want to walk into all that blood and pull rotting meat off hooks, but she seriously doesn’t have another option if she wants to live.

(The clarity of that shocks her most of all. This has all happened so fast, she’s not sure it’s really sunk in that her boyfriend and his family are trying to kill her. But she knows, deep in her bones, that she will not let them do it without a fight. She will not let herself die because she was too scared to do anything. She will keep moving even if it costs her her life.)

She takes a step down into the blood. It’s warm and thicker than she’d expected. Something brushes past her leg and she realises that it's _congealing_. She suddenly remembers something her teacher said in Science last year and it dawns on her that it’s fresh. It’s got to be. Her gaze moves to the things hung up on the meat hooks and one of them is oozing. It’s this dark purple goo that’s coming out of the place where this thing has come apart.

And then Rosemary slips.

She puts her foot on what she assumes is more congealing blood and her legs go out from underneath her. She tries to stop from plummeting the whole way into the pool by putting her hands out behind her, but by some trick of fate, they slip too.

She ends up nearly submerged in the blood, save for part of her face. None of it gets in her nose or her mouth but it’s all over her hair and clothes. It makes her too big t-shirt stick to her torso uncomfortably when she pulls herself up from the ground.

“Shit”, she mutters.

The blood is sticky, and the smell makes her want to gag. It’s not just the smell of pennies, but it’s the rot too. She frowns deeply but manages the last few steps over to the meat hooks. It takes all of her willpower to reach up and hoist the creature off the hook. She starts with an arm and then a leg and then finally the torso connected to the snout-like head. It’s too horrifying to look closely, and she can’t even begin to imagine what they are. Flesh slides off the parts that she touches, and she dumps them next to her, not worried about the splashes of blood now that she’s covered in it. It takes _everything_ in her to ignore the smell.

Once the meat hook is free, she reaches up on her tiptoes and slides it from where its fixed on the ceiling. She is grateful the ceiling is low. She grips the handle between her fingers tight like she’d held the knife and resolves not to let go of it this time.

She makes her way out of the blood, stepping over the floating limbs. She takes slow shuffling steps as not to slip this time. The blood is starting to dry, caking itself on her skin. Her hair is still dripping wet though, it makes it impossible to tell if the wound in her head is bleeding or not. She reaches up to touch it, it’s tender and sore. Her head throbs with the pain.

She readies herself to walk toward the door, glancing around the room for anything else that could be useful. There is nothing. Then the door slams open. Rosemary whips her head around. There’s a woman, not the one from earlier. Older, not old enough to be Charlie’s mother, but Rosemary has no idea if Charlie is who or even what he says he is. The door shuts behind the woman, she stares, eyes impossibly wide at Rosemary.

Rosemary knows she has to do something.

So, before the woman can turn around and get the door open, Rosemary runs at her. She throws her arms around the woman’s torso and throws her body weight back. They stumble as the woman’s hands come up to try to pry Rosemary from her. Rosemary only tightens around her; the meat hook finds resistance and she can only assume it’s digging into the woman’s flesh. She jerks around, trying to break free.

“Get off me”, the woman growls.

 _Fat chance_ , Rosemary wants to say but instead, she’s pulling the woman back. Hauling her toward the pool of blood before she really knows what she’s doing. The woman is weak, Rosemary is not sure she could pull this off if she weren’t. She struggles in Rosemary’s grip but, even despite the kicking and the thrashing, it is not difficult to keep her coming where Rosemary wants her.

Once they’re shin-deep in the blood the woman’s thrashing and kicking only make them slip. Rosemary falls backward, regretting her decision as the woman lands on top of her. She’s still got a hold of the meat hook but all of the woman’s weight is on top of her and she’s wiggling around to push Rosemary’s head under the liquid.

And then there’s warm blood all across her head. She tries to push against the woman, lifting up to take a breath but she pushes Rosemary’s head down while her mouth is still open. She tries to spit out the blood but is only met by a mouthful of something slimy. _That_ gets Rosemary going. The sheer disgust gives her a rush of adrenaline, she slams the meat hook into the side of the woman’s body and surges upward. She violently spits out whatever is in her mouth and wrestles around until she can force the woman down into the blood.

She puts a hand on the woman’s face, avoiding her teeth, and braces her feet against the edge of the pool so she can keep her under. She’s not thinking about what this means. Just over and over and over about how she doesn’t want to drown in a pool of blood and the only way to stop that from happening is to do the same to this woman.

The woman thrashes beneath her, but she is weak, and she is clearly exhausted. Several times the woman’s arms and legs come up to grab at Rosemary, to pull her down but even pressed right up against the woman the pool is too shallow to drown her too.

Somewhere in there, Rosemary starts crying. She is surprised it hadn’t happened before but obviously this was the tipping point for her.

The woman continues to jerk about. It feels cruel to ignore her resistance, to keep her hands firmly on this woman’s head. But Rosemary’s heart is beating so goddamn hard and her head is spinning, the only thing that cuts through is that she needs to _survive_. She needs to make it through this and get out. No matter the cost.

It takes several long minutes for the woman to stop thrashing about after she gulps down enough blood. Rosemary keeps her hands on her face for longer, afraid that it wasn’t enough, even though there’s no resistance anymore. The hands on her wrist slide free.

“Jesus”, Rosemary whispers hoarsely.

There are thick tears running down her face and she wants to scream so badly, but she doesn’t. She can’t. So instead she releases her grip on the woman and fishes around for the meat hook. The woman bobs to the top of the pool, eyes open but terrifying vacant. Rosemary steps out and tries not to think about how she did that. She grips the meat hook tight in her hand.

Then she’s at the door.

She takes a deep breath to steady herself and swings the door open before she can overthink it. Through this door is the only way out, if opening it means she’ll die, at least that’s better than dying tied to a chair and being hung up on meat hooks.

A dark staircase stretches up in front of her, it’s lit by a few candles just like the basement was. As far as she can see there’s no one up the end of it, though the room above her only flickers with candlelight so it’s difficult to tell.

The sharp tip of the meat hook reflects the candlelight. Rosemary is glad she trudged through blood for it, at least she has something to defend herself with.

She makes her way up the steps, one at a time, careful to test the steps for creaks. She has no way to know what’s waiting for her. What Charlie is capable of. Are there more people besides him and his sister? Are there more of those creatures? At least they will be expecting that woman to come back up.

Rosemary crouches down when she gets high enough up the stairs that she can see into the room. She hears soft footsteps and the sound of blood dripping off of her and onto the wood. She puts one foot in front of the other and rises to her full height, coming up out of the basement. _Fuck it_ , she decides, there’s nowhere else for her to go, what good will squatting in the staircase do her? She’s already killed someone today, so who says she can’t do it again.

A wall stretches out in front of her, shelves spanning the whole length of it from top to bottom are covered in lit candles. The melted wax fixes the candles to the wooden surfaces. They fill the room with warm light that casts across a huge marble slab in front of her. She would have rolled her eyes if Charlie weren’t standing on the opposite side.

He narrows his eyes at her.

She wonders what she must look like. Soaked in blood and brandishing a meat hook in her hand. She almost makes the mistake of being worried about how she looks in front of him, but it all comes crashing back down on her when he smiles.

“Interesting”, he says like they’re not talking about her fighting back but about some fucking Math problem, “I didn’t pin you as this kind of girl. Figured you’d just roll over and die.”

“Is that what they usually do”, Rosemary snarls.

He shrugs, “I wouldn’t know. This is the first time we’ve done this.”

Rosemary scowls.

“Oh, by the way”, she says, even if a little bit glad to hear that this is his first time doing this, “Your little friend is dead down there.”

Something dark very suddenly passes over his face, “What.”

“ _Jesus_ ”, she hisses, “What was I supposed to do? She’s _dead_.”

“You fucking _bitch_.”

And then all of sudden he’s vaulting himself over the marble slab and coming right at her. Rosemary scrambles out of the way but he’s somehow faster. He grabs her arm so hard she’s afraid it will dislocate. He yanks her toward him. She thrashes in his grip, swinging the meat hook in her other hand. He dodges it, which causes his hand to slip. He doesn’t let go but his grip is unstable now, hand wrapped around her wrist. With enough force, she might be able to get him to let go. She tries a few times, kicking her legs out and twisting her body so he cant get his other hand around her.

She’s almost there, his grip is slipping.

The door slams open and the girl from before- the sister- comes hurtling in.

She takes the distraction and yanks hard on her arm. She flies back quickly, released from Charlie’s grip, and swings the meat hook at his head. He dodges it only for her to bring her knee up to his head. He bounces off it and hits the marble slab. He slumps to the ground.

Rosemary focuses her attention on the girl, just _praying_ that Charlie will stay put. Anger burns hot through her as the girl comes at her in a blur of red hair. She sees the blade glinting in the candlelight a second too late and even though she’s already dodging, the knife slices right into her forearm. Rosemary screams in pain and swipes the meat hook wildly in the girl’s direction in retaliation, it lands once or twice because she hurtles back a few feet and clutches her arm.

Rosemary doesn’t give her a moment to recover and goes straight for the girl's hand. She brandishes the meat hook in front of her, forcing the girl to slam back into the window on the other side of the room. It shatters with the force, though it was already cracked, shards of glass fall around them. Rosemary tightens her grip on the girl's hand and squeezes until she drops it. It clatters onto broken glass. The girl tries to surge forward but Rosemary presses the glinting hook up to her throat.

Then, Rosemary draws the meat hook back and before she has a chance to move, slams the girl's head hard against the window frame. A piece of glass still attached to the window frame lodges itself in the girl's head. She screams and knocks the meat hook out of Rosemary’s hand; it goes flying into the corner of the room. Then she puts two hands on her shoulders and shoves.

Rosemary feels the glass digging into her back as she hits the ground.

“Get her on the slab you fucking idiot”, Charlie yells from behind them as the girl slams her hand around Rosemary’s neck, “It’s doesn’t work unless she’s on the slab.”

 _Fucking liar_.

“ _FUCK_ ”, the girl yells, her grip only loosens slightly on Rosemary’s neck.

Rosemary’s hand finally gets a grip on the blade the girl had dropped. Her hand wraps around the cold metal. The girl starts to climb off her, hand going to Rosemary’s hair to keep her under control. Rosemary ignores her muscles screaming and the glass digging itself into her back as she twists and brings the knife up and plunges it into the girl's shoulder.

The girl screams louder than before.

Rosemary, not incredibly keen on the idea of killing another person (even if justified), yanks out the knife buried in her shoulder. Blood spills out of it, dripping all over her hand and wrist. The girl tries to twist around to grab the knife. Instead of plunging the knife into her neck or something, Rosemary brings her elbow up into the girl's face and then immediately after shoves her into the wall where she collapses straight away.

Her chest heaves and she tries to keep the panic at bay.

She pushes the girl off of her and climbs to her feet, watching as Charlie stumbles up as well. He grabs a hold of the marble slab to support his weight. It’s almost satisfying to watch him lurch about, defenseless and dazed.

“Fuck you”, she manages even though it feels like her throat is going to close up.

He laughs like he’s got everything under control, but all Rosemary can hear is the panic and worry that undercuts it. She stares at him, braced up against the slab and she realises that she really must have fucked him up when she whacked him in the head. He can barely move and his head keeps tilting back and forth like he can't quite decide which way is forward and upright. He takes a few steps toward her, but they’re slow and he almost trips.

Rosemary takes a few cautionary steps toward the door, thinking that she might be able to get away and call the cops before he can reach her. Though when he realises what she’s doing he takes a few almost normal steps toward her before falling back onto the slab.

“ _Shit_ ”, she whispers.

She closes the distance between them and once she’s close enough he’s got his hands wrapped around her neck. She struggles a little but they’re barely squeezing. It’s clear he’s losing consciousness every few seconds, or at least it's slipping. His hands around her neck do nothing to secure her arms.

She tilts her head at him. She has this urge to tell him how much he hurt her, to tell him how much he meant to her, but she doesn’t quite want to give him the satisfaction. He would probably love to hear about how much he broke her little heart. He drops one hand from her neck and grabs her shoulder and the other goes to her hand, she realises quickly that he’s trying to get the knife and force her onto the marble slab.

His strength is pitiful really.

Rosemary frowns at him, “I’m breaking up with you”, she says, if only for herself.

Then she clenches her hand into a fist, draws it back, and knocks her hand right into his eye. He slumps down immediately, hands losing traction on her shoulder and wrist. He slides down the marble slab and collapses in a heap on the ground.

Rosemary steps back and starts shaking _immediately_. Now that she’s safe from immediate threats all of her adrenaline has worn off and the weight of everything comes crashing down on her. She sucks in a shaky breath and trips her way out of the room. The door opens up and she comes out into a kitchen. Her eyes straight away zero in on the phone hanging on the wall. She drops the bloodied knife on the tile and lurches toward the phone.

She dials 911 blindly and has never been happier to hear a phone ring in her life.

She spits something out at the operator and after a brief conversation is assured that police are coming to her address right away. She lets the phone clatter to the floor and makes her way through the house and out the front onto the porch.

She slumps onto the steps, shivering despite the warm air.

In front of her, her car is still running, casting light onto the forest as dawn breaks above her. It’s only minutes until she hears sirens and three police cars peel down the driveway, followed by an ambulance. As soon as the first car is parked Sheriff Hopper is launching himself out of the car with his gun pointed somewhere just above her. Or _at_ her, she’s not sure.

She doesn’t have it in her to throw her hands up.

Then there’s a gunshot, it echoes through the trees and makes her ears ring for hours after the fact. Then she feels the weight of something heavy thudding behind her. Rosemary furrows her eyebrows, looking up at the Sheriff in question. He’s mouthing something over and over and shaking his head. She cant hear because her ears are still ringing from the gunshot.

She turns her head.

Just a few feet behind her lays Charlie. A pool of blood gathers around his skull which lays in shattered pieces around where his head was. In his hand is the knife she’d dropped back in the kitchen, glinting in the early morning sunlight.

And even though she can’t hear, Rosemary is pretty sure that she screams.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading. i mainly write on wp @/grgweasleys so if u see my stuff on there under that user its just me :) . i am also on tumblr under the same user.
> 
> [and pls check out the video edit for this series that my friend made me -https://youtu.be/g4SermVjqWs.]


End file.
